MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The supporting cast came through tonight for West Virginia in its 72-61 victory over Utah at the WVU Coliseum.
 
With the Utes focusing their attention on the Big 12's leading scorer, Javon Small, teammate Amani Hansberry scored a game-high 17 points, Joseph Yesufu came off the bench to contribute 14 and freshman Jonathan Powell tallied 11 to get the Mountaineers back to .500 in conference play at 6-6.
 
Small finished with 14 points and handed out eight assists, but the senior attempted just five shots while getting nine of his 14 at the free throw line. If not for Small's perfect free throw shooting, however, West Virginia would have been much worse from the charity stripe. The rest of the team made only four of 14, including two of 10 in the second half.
 
"We knew it was going to be a little choppy at times with their switching defenses, so it took us a while to kind of find ourselves, but we got a lot of contributions from a lot of guys in different ways," West Virginia coach Darian DeVries said. "They did a good job making it tough on Javon, but I thought the other guys did a good job of taking advantage of some of those spaces on the backside of double teams."
 
West Virginia (15-8) took control of the game late in the first half following Mason Madsen's 3-pointer that pulled the Utes to within two, 29-27, with 2:59 to go.
 
Yesufu got a pair of baskets and then Toby Okani made the play of the game by blocking 7-foot-1 center Lawson Lovering's dunk attempt and then hitting a 3 from the corner at the other end.
 
That put the Mountaineers ahead 36-27 at the half.
 
"I thought that was a big stretch for us right before halftime," DeVries said. "In our previous game (against TCU) it went the other way. We came out of the four-minute timeout talking about finishing the half in a positive way and had a couple of guys make some really big plays there."
 
West Virginia had its biggest lead of the game, 14, on Powell's 3 with 12:38 to go, but the Utes wouldn't go away. A Keanu Hawes layup made it a six-point game, 56-50, and the margin was whittled to five after five straight points by Jake Wahlin.
 
Powell answered with a big 3 from straight away that bounced off the rim and settled down through the basket with 2:33 left. That put WVU ahead 67-59. 
 
Two Small free throws got the margin back to 10 with 1:50 left and then layups by Yesufu and Powell punctuated an 8-2 spurt to end the game.
 
"Utah didn't quit by any means. They kept fighting and scratching and we were fortunate on a couple where their good shooters got free and got some pretty good looks and we were lucky that they didn't go down," DeVries said. "Guys made some plays. I thought J.P.'s 3 was critical and Joe had some of those driving runners that went in. I don't know how they go in, but I'm glad they do."
 
West Virginia held its own on the glass against the much taller Utes, who had a slim 35-to-33 rebounding advantage for the game. 
 
Dawes grabbed a game-high 11 boards while leading Utah in scoring with 14 points.
 
Leading scorer Gabe Madsen was held eight points below his season average and finished with seven. His 3-point shooting difficulties in Big 12 play continue tonight as he made just one of five after coming into the game shooting just 23.3% from behind the arc in conference play.
 
Overall, Utah made 23 of its 56 field goal attempts for 41.1% and scored on just 28 of its 61 offensive possessions tonight. The Utes were just eight of 19 on layup attempts.
 
Wahlin finished with 10 for Utah, which drops to 13-10 overall and 5-7 in conference play.
 
West Virginia connected on 25 of its 52 field goal attempts for 48.1% and was successful on 51.6% of its 62 offensive possessions.
 
Tonight's victory was the first in seven tries against Utah. The losses were all away from the WVU Coliseum in 1947, 1956, 1961, 1974, 1976 and 1998.
 
A crowd of 13,166 watched tonight's "Coal Rush" game that featured the Mountaineers wearing their black uniforms in honor of the state's coal mining industry. 
 
West Virginia will remain at home to face BYU on Tuesday night. The Cougars are playing at Cincinnati tonight.